The Spider Queen
by DejaVu897
Summary: It was a normal day for Evra and Darren... or so they thought. They made a shocking discovery when they find a hidden tent, and a gir named Melanie Juniper Lee Ramm. 21 chapters, some are bunched together. Slight Evra x OC
1. Author's Note

_**Author's Note**_

I DO NOT own the Cirque Du Freak franchise/ series or whatever. I am just a 13 year old girl who absolutely adores the Cirque Du Freak series. I have a dream of becoming a writer so I hope that this is a good start. Reading all 12 books of the Cirque Du Freak series has changed my life. I read a lot, mostly about supernatural things. I find it comforting to escape from the usual norm. Why read about something real- life when you could escape to another world, full of magic and/or supernatural beings. While reading the Cirque Du Freak series, I felt as if I were in the story myself. I even cried or mourned when a character ceased to exist. Although the characters of Darren Shan and Evra Von are not of my creation, I decided to make them some of the main characters of my story. I did this because of the fact that there is a year and a half difference between my two favorite books in the series: The Vampire's Assistant and Tunnels of Blood. I wondered what adventures had Darren and Evra faced during the year and a half. So I decided to fill that in. I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I loved writing it. Thanks!

Signed,

DejaVu 897


	2. Chapters 1 thru 4

_**Chapter One **_

"Wake up", I hear someone say, "It's morning!" I roll over, still sleepy.

"Five more minutes!" I say for the third time.

Evra rolls his eyes. "You said that fifteen minutes ago. I let you sleep in long enough. Come on, It's sunny out!" I groan. I open my eyes a bit to talk to Evra face to face.

"Ugh! Yep, that's the sun, alright." I close my eyes for a few more minutes sleep. Five seconds later, a pillow lands on my face. I fully awake no and I am ready for an all out pillow war. I got out of my hammock, pillow ready. I wasn't going to loose this battle. Not this time.

"It's so on! Huh?" I see nothing. Nobody.

"AHA!" It turns out that he climbed onto the roof of the tent. He jumps down from above, pushing me to the ground. There we start to wrestle.

"Having fun, boys?" We look up sheepishly to find Mr. Hibernius Tall, the ring leader of the Cirque Du Freak, standing in the threshold of the tent.

"Good morning, Mr. Tall.", we say in muffled unison.

When I refer to "we", I am referring to my tent-mate, Evra Von, and I, Darren Shan. A few weeks ago, I came here to the cirque with my vampire mentor, Mr. Larten Crepsley. Before becoming my mentor, Mr. Crepsley performed here at the Cirque Du Freak, home of some of the most amazing people who ever lived. We have a lot of different acts here, including the young Evra Von: the Snake Boy. I perform with Mr. Crepsley and his spider Madame Octa.

Mr. Tall smiles, his shiny black teeth showing.

"I see that you two boys get along just fine." It's true. Evra and I glance at each other in agreement. We have become great friends since the day that we've met.

"Well, I would like you to only do one chore today. You, Evra, must get Mr. Shan familiarized with the layout of our campground." Evra nods.

"Of course, Mr. Tall. Does that mean that we're going to leave?" It was Mr. Tall's turn to nod.

"Yes, soon. Our show will be done here in a few more days. It gives us a fresh new town for a new show." My eyes widen.

"Does that mean that we will be getting a new performer?" I ask, eagerly.

"Yes. Who knows, you might end up meeting them today." And at that moment, Mr. Tall backs out of the tent with his trademark mischievous grin on his face.

_**Chapter Two**_

Evra and I started to walk around the campground after breakfast. We would have walked with our new human friend, Sam Grest, but his mother told him that he couldn't leave the house, due to a lack of family bonding time. While walking around, Evra pointed out different tents and trailers and told me who lived there. Certain people preferred to live in a specific place, so while setting up, I need to learn the layout for quick moves to new towns. After I recited the layout several times, we walked around tents that were used for storage and explored inside them. We saw mostly old props and photos. When there were no tents unexplored, we walked around and started asking questions to each other, mostly about our lives. When Evra asked me about the most daring thing that I've ever done, I didn't even need to think. It was stealing Mr. Crepsley's spider. We walked in silence for a moment because I was thinking about what to ask him. Then it hit me like lightning. I thought that we were just joking around when I asked him, but I soon found that I was wrong.

"What was the scariest thing that ever happened to you?" Evra then stopped short, eyes wide, and collapsed to his knees.

"What's the matter," I asked, "What happened?" Evra stared into space for a minute to catch his breath.

"Four months ago," Evra gasped, "I… almost died." My heart stopped when he said that.

"No," I thought, "he's not serious. He's just messing with me." But with just one look at him, I knew that he wasn't playing.

"How did this happen? What was wrong?" I sat down next to Evra and he started to tell his tale.

"Four months ago, we were somewhere far away from here. I got sick. It was a sickness that nobody could name. At first, it masqueraded as a simple cold, but it got worse and worse. It came to the point where I couldn't walk or talk. I spent a lot of time in the infirmary, where I had to sleep. Mr. Tall wouldn't even leave my side. He barely left his chair. But you know…" Evra paused thoughtfully, "When I would come to my senses after sleeping everyday, I could've sworn that I heard a voice. It was the voice of a girl. She used to talk to Mr. Tall. The weird thing was that after I heard her speak for the first time, I started to feel better. And then I woke up a few days later feeling as if I was never sick at all. I think she had something to do with it. I could have sworn that I saw her once, too. I think she saved me, Darren." I thought for a moment.

"Why haven't you told Mr. Tall?" I asked.

"I did, but he told me that I must have been hearing things. He must be right, though. I mean, she called him 'Father'. No one around here calls Mr. Tall 'Father'." I helped Evra get up and we started walking again. We've gotten to one of the farthest corners of our current campground. We were camped in a small clearing in the woods.

While we were walking, something caught my eye. I could've sworn that I saw something glimmer out of the corner of my eye. Evra spotted it as well, and he stopped. We decided to get closer and while we did, the glimmer grew stronger. It grew stronger and stronger, until we were standing in front of a tent. It was purple and it was decorated with a moon and star pattern. There was no light on inside.

"Weird." Evra mumbled, thoughtfully. The next thing I knew, Evra ran a short distance away and then ran back to where I was standing. A few seconds later, he repeated this action.

"What are you doing, you psycho maniac?" I grabbed Evra's arm, because he was about to run away again.

"Don't you see," Evra stated, "This tent has a magical force around it. It was made so that you can't see it from far away. But if you get closer, you could see it. The spell used is clever. I wonder what's inside." I stared at Evra in astonishment.

"Evra," I gasped sarcastically, "That is the smartest thing you have said since I met you!" Evra nodded with a smile on his face. "I know, right? It scared me, too! I wonder what's inside. Should we go in?" I pondered this for a moment.

"Well," I said, "we should get familiarized with the campground, _including_all tents and trailers."

It was obvious, to say the least, that someone was living there. Inside, there was a small vanity set, a table at the back with mysterious objects on it, and a hammock with a small mattress… _and a person _inside it. Even from far away, you could tell it was a girl. She was about our age, with long black hair, and fair skin. She was facing the opposite side of the tent. We gently turn the girl over to see her face. Evra's scales turn a pale green.

"What's wrong?" I whisper, loudly. Evra steps back and points at the girl.

"It's her! That's the girl, the one that I supposedly made up. She's the one… S-She's the girl that I saw in the infirmary!" I see a tag on the floor, a shadow, and that's the last thing that I saw before I passed out.

_**Chapter Three**_

When I came to my senses, I knew where I was. I knew who I was. I still remembered what had happened and why I was on the floor. The only things that I didn't know was: 1) What/Who hit me and 2) How long I was unconscious for. I hear someone yelling in pain. I open my eyes to see Evra lying on his stomach, arm pinned to his back. The person pinning Evra's arm to his back was the girl. She had fair skin, long, flowing black hair, and red eyes. It's not like they were glowing red, they were red in the cornea area. The fighting elevated in seconds, and the girl was relentless. Evra's arm would've snapped in two if it could have. Something is odd about this girl. If she really wanted to hurt Evra, she could have gone for any of exposed areas on Evra's body. She could have gone for his legs, or his head, or another… delicate area. But I knew that she somehow didn't know what she was doing. She just then decided that she would start to do _both_ of Evra's arms. While I was wondering what I should have done, something glittered over by the hammock. It was the tag that I saw drop on the floor before I passed out. I rolled over to the spot to see what was written. It said: _**This belongs to Melanie J.L. Ramm.**_ I figured that it was her name so I shouted, "Melanie, stop!" The girl stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes change color. The color is a beautiful purple. She takes one look at what she was doing to Evra and she immediately drops his arms. The moment he hit the floor, she winced and said,

"Oooh! The human arm is not supposed to bend that way!" Her eyes went wide and she starts pacing back and forth.

"Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods! Father is going to KILL me when he finds out what I have done!"

A voice behind us says,

"When I find out what?" The girl turned around so fast that her hair curtained her face.

"H-Hey, daddy! H-How long have you, uhh, been, uhh, standing there?" she stammered. I finally turn to see Mr. Tall in the threshold of the tent. He was leaning against the tent pole, his arms crossed.

"Why don't we all talk about this while Melanie patches the both of you up."

Later, Evra and I are sitting on the table at the back of the tent. Evra's arm was being put in a bandage by Mr. Tall. Melanie was mixing this cream in a bowl. She was being really frantic about it, mumbling to herself, eyes changing color from time to time. I was holding a cloth full of ice to the side of my head. After Evra's arm was all bandaged up, we started telling our story. Evra and I got to the part where we rolled Melanie over. She slapped her forehead and exclaimed,

"I get it now! Gods, you guys are stupid!" We were confused.

"What are you talking about? What did we do that was so bad?" She looked at us in disbelief.

"You touched me! That's what you did!" We must've still looked confused, because Melanie rolled her eyes. Mr. Tall finally stepped into the conversation and explained it all to us.

"You see," Mr. Tall started, "Your blood type has a lot to do with who you are, especially your personality and how you react to things. Melanie, being blood type AB, has a very short patience span and she gets aggravated very easily. She is especially not as fun when she is woken up."

"Well, thanks for telling us now," said Evra, "after I almost got my arm ripped off by Crazy McPshyco over here!" I started to laugh, but I stopped. Melanie's eyes flash red and she hits the both of us. She hit me where she almost bashed my head in and she hit Evra where she left the bruises on his arm.

"OW!" we both shout in unison.

"Oh, wait," Melanie said softly, "Did that hurt?"

"Well, yeah!" shouts Evra.

"GOOD! Thank you, come again!" Mr. Tall smiles and sighs,

"Melanie. Be nice." Melanie looks at him in disbelief.

"Daddy, are you serious? It's kinda hard to be nice to these clowns! They were stupid enough to put me in war mode! Why would they touch a strange person when they are sleeping? It's common sense, dad! Common sense." In the midst of this, Evra and I totally forgot about our injuries. Evra groaned. The pain had returned to his arm.

"Oh," Mr. Tall says, "right. Your arm. Melanie will work her… _magic_."__Mr. Tall gestures for Melanie to go to Evra. She picked up the bowl that she was mixing in and she, literally, worked her magic.

_**Chapter Four**_

Melanie walked over to the table Evra and I was sitting on. I got off of it to let the strange girl that was wearing all black through. She sat down next to Evra and said, in the calmest voice I've ever heard,

"Evra, give me your arm. I won't hurt you. I promise that it won't hurt much." Evra had a surprised look on his face. He put his hand in hers. Melanie then closed her eyes and said a word that was definitely not our language. She said,

"Anixt."* She winces a few seconds later and states,

"I only gave him a fracture. It's not that bad, really." She started applying the paste onto Evra's scales. It was strange because it just melted into his scales. Melanie put her hands onto Evra's arm and she said the word,

"Firum."** She kept her hands on Evra's arm for a few minutes. We sat there in silence because Melanie demanded it. When I asked her why, and if it was for concentration, she shook her head and said,

"No. I just want you to shut up." A few minutes later, she takes her hands off of Evra and announces that his arm was no longer fractured. Mr. Tall took the bandage off and Evra flexed it.

*(Ann-eek-st) ** (F-ear-um)

"This feels great!" Evra exclaimed. "How did you do that?" Melanie smiled and said one simple word,

"Magic." We were silent for a moment, taking in the word. _Magic__**.**_

"Magic." I say.

"Yeah, magic." Melanie repeats.

"Magic?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"… _Really_?"

"YES! REALLY! I USED MAGIC! I'M A SORCERESS! GET IT THROUGH THAT THICK SKULL OF YOURS!"

"Jeez," Evra sighs, "take a chill pill." Melanie's eyes went red again. She apparently wanted to kill us because she was trying to run at us, but she was being held back by Mr. Tall.

"Melanie," Mr. Tall said, trying not to laugh, "Behave!"

"Ugh, are you serious! Father, I have to spend the rest of my life with these two idiots?" We both looked at her in confusion.

"Aren't you exaggerating a bit?" I asked.

"Yeah," she sighed then yelled, "with **you**! But it is **Evra** that I am literally stuck with **FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE**!"

"What are you talking about?" Evra asked. Melanie's eyes went wide and the color drained from her skin… _and from her eyes and hair_!

"What the hell?" I exclaimed.

"Do not worry," Mr. Tall assured us, "it's fine. It's perfectly normal for Melanie. She does that she does something that she thinks she is not supposed to do. It also happens", Mr. Tall paused to look at Melanie, "when she didn't do she was supposed to do in the first place and I found out about it. You didn't tell them?"

"Well," Melanie says, "define "tell"."

"Melanie," Mr. Tall says sternly, "you know what I mean." Melanie sighed.

"I couldn't have told them while I was beating up Evra. I was busy mixing my little concoction and I put a spell on Evra's bones, so I couldn't have done it then. I didn't have the opportunity to tell them." Mr. Tall made a face.

"That may be the case, but I can tell that you weren't going to tell them anyway." Melanie slouched on the table.

"Yeah, that's true. I'm sorry. But, it would be kinda hard to drop the bomb on them. I don't even know them."

"Well," Evra mumbled, "you didn't know us earlier and you still tried to kill us." Melanie's color returned and her eyes went red.

"Do you want me to really snap your arm off, Snakey?"

"No."

"Well then, so that doesn't happen, why don't you try **SHUTTING UP**!" Melanie looked at me.

"What are you looking at, Darren Shan, age fourteen and **NOT** normal?" Wait, What? Did she just say not normal? I could be a human stagehand for all she knows.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Whoa," she says sarcastically, "easy, killer! All I know is that you're not normal. When I hit you with my staff," she pointed over to a killer looking staff (it was black and pointy at the bottom and it had a small ivory skull on the top), "you were out for, like, _ten_ seconds! You are too strong to be normal. You are not normal Darren Shan." Great, she's a dramatist.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." Evra says. "Is it possible that you already knew that?'

That simple question started a complex conversation that went like this:

Melanie: What?

Evra: Is it possible that you already knew that Darren isn't normal?

Melanie: It's probable.

Me: No, he said possible.

M: Probable, possible. It's the same thing, really.

E/Me: Huh?

M: Yeah.

E: Wait, maybe I'm mistaken, but aren't probable and possible two different words?

M: Maybe, but it's all the same to me. They both start with the letter p and they both have the suffix –ble, which I don't think means anything, or maybe it does. Possible, probable. Possibility, probability. It's all the same, really. Oh my gods, I'm doing it. I'm doing it again, I'm rambling again. Ugh! I do this all of the time. I just ramble and ramble and I just don't stop. You know I really should stop. I just hate it when I ramble! I just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk without ever stopping. And what annoys me the most is that I always say I should stop and I explain why my rambling annoys me. You know, I should just shut up now. I should just shut up!

Me: Uhhh…

M: Shut up.

"Okay, now that that's over with, Melanie is going to tell you her story. You could see in her body language that she was still reluctant to tell us, but she finally gave in.

"Okay, fine. I will tell you my story. But bear with me guys, it might still be a little blurry."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's not a pleasant memory," Melanie explained to Evra and me, "I don't wish to think about it. It was a dark time, kiddo. It's not that I can't think about it, I just refuse to. The mind blocks out a lot of things that the heart doesn't like." Evra and I knew what she meant. Evra was abandoned as a baby and it still pains me to think about the before time. The question that I asked Melanie had gotten me thinking. If our stories are bad, then Melanie's must have been ten times worse. She wouldn't have gone through all of the trouble not to think about it if it wasn't traumatic. Just then, thunder boomed and lightning flashed across the sky.

"Well, children," Mr. Tall said, "If you need me, Melanie would give me a holler."

"Wouldn't be too hard to hear her." Evra said, jokingly. Oddly enough, I knew Melanie enough already to know that she would normally lash out at comments like that, but she was too caught up in her thoughts to react.

"What… oh. Yeah, I'll call, father. I promise." Mr. tall nods at her and says,

"I bid thee farewell for now. I'll see you later." He turns towards the entrance of the tent and we turn towards the fire that Melanie had made earlier.

"Oh, and Melanie," Mr. Tall says over his shoulder, "Don't kill the boys while I'm away." Melanie smiles a bit, which made the color return a little.

"…Okay, dad. I won't." She said it a little too sweetly. It was Mr. Tall's turn to smile and he exits the tent. Once he is gone, Melanie's color fades again.

"Well boys, I guess it's time to start my story."

"Just a minute," I said, " when does this story particularly start?"

"Well, it starts four years ago. But, I guess it really started when I was born."

12


	3. Chapters 5 thru 8

**Chapter Five**

Melanie proceeded to tell her story.

"My parents pretty much always knew that I wasn't 100% normal, but they prayed to our multiple gods, and even to gods that are not apart of our culture, that I would be. That's how badly they wanted to keep me safe. I was pretty neutral for a while, and my parents thought that I was, in fact, normal. But, they soon found out that they were wrong when I crawled onto the ceiling one day when I was five. When they found out that they were wrong, they feared for my life. You see, boys, there are a lot of people out there who don't like people like us. They want to wipe out our entire population, one by one. My mom and dad did everything to protect me. They home schooled me in the art of fighting ever since then. We were fine up until I was eight years old.

"My mom was an interior designer and my dad was an architect. They were holding a dinner for their current clients, and I had to attend it. I felt weird earlier that day and I told them that it wasn't a good idea to make me go, but they made me come to the dinning room anyway. What a freaking mistake that was! Later that evening, my powers went out of control!"

"What a crappy time for your powers to go crazy!" Evra was exasperated. Melanie nodded.

"And that's not the worst part of it! A… _witch hunter_ was amongst them. Let's just say that we had a showdown and my family had to bail. We moved eleven times after that. After my tenth home, we finally settled down in a small suburb far away from here, where we lived for about a year. Everything was good for a while. I went to school and I got straight A's. My family was better than ever. We were happy that we finally found a place where we felt safe. All of that ended a little over four months ago. I was walking home from school when I smelled something burning. It was just beginning to get warmer outside and I just figured that someone was barbecuing outside. I continued my walk towards my house, but it started smelling weirder and weirder, more and more like gasoline. And soon, my calm walk turned into a frantic sprint. When I got to my house, I found a crowd of neighbors, a bunch of fire fighters, and my burning house. Ignoring the people around me, and after I pushed away five fire fighters, I finally got into my house. I ran up the stairs. I tried all of the doors, but they were all locked. Boys, isn't it a coincidence that all of the doors were locked when I was looking for them? I think not! It was those wretched witch hunters! Luckily, I heard my parents in their room."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, the only thing I could do. I kicked the door down with a round-house!" Evra and I did a spit take with the tea that Melanie had made us earlier to ease the pain. The bad thing was that the spit take got all over her.

"All right," she said a little aggravated, "no more tea for you guys!"

"What the hell? You said that if it was normal for someone to give a door a round-house kick!"

"Well, now I'm curious," Evra said, "how many kicks?"

"One, of course. How many kicks does it normally take to break down a door?"

"I don't know, Melanie," I said, "I don't usually go around kicking doors in!"

"Can we get back to the story please?" Melanie pleaded desperately.

"Yes, can we?" said Evra. (He said it to keep his head from getting bashed in.)

"Yes, but one more question."

"What?" said Melanie (still slightly aggravated).

"Couldn't you have used your magic to get them out of the house?"

"Nope, that's impossible. My magic doesn't work in extreme heat or extreme coldness." Melanie explained. "Anyway..." she said, pausing and looking uncomfortable.

"Listen, Mel, you don't have to finish the story if you can't handle it. I mean, it's okay-"

"No!" Melanie shouted. "I must finish!" She had a determined look in her sad eyes. "I-I have to do this! Please, boys, just bear with me. Please… you… you guys…" She was trying to tell us something, but she was reluctant to tell us.

"Okay now, let's not get too cocky, but… you guys are all that I got." In the mere hours that we've known her, she has never said anything that nice. I bet that she had never said anything like that to anyone in her life. Her saying that had made me and Evra smile. When we looked over at Melanie, she was staring at the ground. Her body was shaking. Her eyes were wide and they were changing colors like crazy. All of a sudden, it looked as if the tent was being consumed by darkness. Evra and I looked at each other and then we looked at Melanie. Tears were in her eyes. Evra and I started to fall to the ground. My eyes started to feel heavy. I felt as if the world was spinning out of control and crashing around me. I thought about the strange events that occurred that day. And I felt that this was the craziest thing yet. And then, finally, I passed out.

I woke up coughing. I smelled a thick smoke. Someone was shaking me and calling my name. When I open my eyes, I see Melanie and Evra kneeled down next to me.

"Thank… gods… you're… alright!" sputtered Melanie.

"Yeah…" Evra sputtered, "I… thought… that… we… would… have… to… carry… you!"

"Where are we?" I managed to sputter normally.

"Well, we're… in a… burning… building." Evra said.

"No, really! I… thought… we were… at… Disneyland!" Suddenly, someone bust through the door. She looks like… oh my gods! I was flabbergasted. I thought that I must have imagined her, but Evra and Melanie had seen her as well. She ran past us and up the stairs. Melanie made a small gesture with her hand and after that, everything seemed to slow to a stop and we could finally breathe again. After I got my breath, I had to ask.

"Melanie, was that-" Before I had finished my sentence, Melanie nodded.

"Yes, Darren, that girl… was me." Evra's eyes went wide.

"How is that possible?" he asked.

"This is an illusion. It's one of my special skills. I can create them with my magic. In reality, we are all passed out in front of the fire in my tent."

"Wow," says Evra, looking around, "this all seems so real!" We were impressed.

"If you haven't guessed already, this is my old house. I need to see what happened. It's a coping mechanism, and, for we who have tiny human/vampire and reptile brains, that means that I would probably be able to accept what happened and I'll finally be able to trust myself again. Okay?" Evra smiled warmly at her and said,

"Even though you just insulted us in front of our faces, okay." He looked at me for my approval.

"Oh, alright." I said. Tears came into Melanie's eyes.

"Thank you." she whispered.

"Are you okay enough to go on?" I asked. She had to think about it for a moment. She doesn't say anything, but she nods her head. At that moment, we proceeded up the stairs.

**Chapter Six**

It was odd seeing everything frozen. You kinda expected the flames to just jump out at you. Melanie had paused the illusion when, er, _Melanie_ was trying to knock the door down. When Melanie had unpaused the scene, I couldn't believe what I saw next. One round-house kick and she took the door down, right off the hinges! Illusion Melanie screamed when she saw her parents gagged, blindfolded, and bound by ropes to two chairs. Real Melanie cringed and looked away. I could sense the ticking of a bomb in the room. This place was about to explode. Illusion Melanie was _biting through the ropes_! I looked over at Melanie and I noticed that her canines were unusually pointed. Then I heard someone scream,

"You've got to get out of here!" It was Melanie's mother. Melanie looks a lot like her. Same pure black hair, same fair skin, even the same purple eye color. She also had pointed canines.

"No," cried illusion Melanie, "I'm not leaving you guys here!" This argument went on for a little while longer. The bomb was ticking faster and faster.

"My parents thought that I was being stubborn", says Melanie, "but they did not know of me biggest fear… of being alone." It was getting hotter and hotter in the room, and illusion Melanie was not going to leave. Her parents looked at each other, knowing what had to be done. Mrs. Ramm grabbed illusion Melanie from behind and Mr. Ramm opened.

'Oh no,' I thought, 'they can't do that to her!' If Melanie didn't have her super-human strength, she could have been killed by what they did next.

"No matter what happens to us," shouts her father, "just know that we love you more than life itself." Real Melanie snapped her fingers and we suddenly appear outside the house, at the front of the crowd. At that moment, illusion Melanie was thrown out of the window.

She landed on the ground with a loud thud. She was in shock. And the worst part was yet to come. The second that Melanie looked up, when we heard a loud beep, her house exploded. Then there was the ear-splitting scream that came from illusion Melanie. The Real Melanie pauses the whole scene.

"My super human strength saved me from broken bones and possible death. My mother's and father's friends just waited there on the street, as if they couldn't believe what they saw before them. I felt… _alone._ And I was scared. Eventually, every one left, except for one couple that knew my parents. They said that I needed a home, or at least a place to sleep. They owned a hotel and they let me stay there and said that if I had no other family, that they would love to become my legal guardians. I couldn't answer them. I had no words to say." She then slowly extended her arm to "fast-forward" us into a room. It was dark and no one was in there.

"Why are we here?" I asked. "Who lives h-" Just as I was about to say "here", Melanie whipped her hand towards my face and held up her index finger. Her hand was, literally, centimeters away from my face.

"_WAIT_." She said in a scary whisper. I do admit that she really scared me at that point. But, I also do admit that she has pretty good reflexes.

About a minute later, illusion Melanie walks through the door. She looked horrible. She had a grey, almost white, color in her eyes. Her skin, instead of having a sort of glow, had an unnatural grey haze to it. And her hair was going from pure black to borderline green.

"It must have been horrible having green hair." I said. Evra glared at me under his own green hair.

"Oh, right… sorry." Then we looked over at Melanie. She was staring at her self (illusion Melanie), cheeks flushed. Evra stepped forward and touched Melanie's arm.

"Are you okay?" Melanie looked at him.

"I don't know," Melanie said, distantly, "are you touching me?"

"Ummm… yes?" Melanie looked relieved.

"Good, then I'm not going completely crazy." She stares ahead a little while longer and pauses the scene.

"As you can see, I wasn't feeling… great. That day just kept on haunting me. I felt that it was my fault that my parents were dead. I should have tried to do this or I should have done that. That occurred over and over and over! Until… Until one day." She made the gesture to unpause the scene, but she extended her arm to fast-forward. A strong wind came forward and we whizzed past five or six days before she stopped at one specific day. Melanie walks through the door, but she looked exactly the same as she did the other day.

"Are you sure we're not on the same day? You look just as horrible as before." I said, absentmindedly. If looks could kill, I would have been dead a long time ago, especially with some of the girls I knew. But when Melanie gave me her red-eyed death glare, I knew that I would have died a million horrible deaths.

Illusion Melanie dropped her bag and her jacket on the floor and flopped onto the bed. I nudged Melanie.

"Mel, why are we here?"

"…"

"Why did you bring us to this day?"

"..."

"WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING ANY OF MY QUESTIONS?"

"BECAUSE YOU WON'T SHUT UP!" Evra and Melanie yelled in unison.

"Jeez, dude! Lay off of the questions. The answers will soon come. I didn't bring you to this day for you to not learn something. Patience, the time will come." I sighed.

"Jeez, you sound like my mom!" Melanie looked at me.

"Because I'm older than you! And I promised Daddy that I will be in charge so shut up and pay attention to the story."

"But what are you trying to show us?" Melanie paused the scene and sighed heavily.

"Well, this is the day that I left my past for good." I was confused and so was Evra.

"What do you mean? I don't get it." Melanie gives us a weak smile and says,

"Watch." And for what seemed like the millionth time that day, she made the gesture to unpause the scene.

There was a knock at illusion Melanie's hotel room door. She got up and smoothed out the wrinkles on her black skirt. She walked over to the door and opens it.

"May I…" she started to say, but stopped when she saw the size of the man. There is only one person who could be that tall (no pun intended). The person standing in the hallway was Mr. Tall. He got closer to the doorway and kneeled down. Him and Melanie locked eyes and stayed like that for a few minutes.

"What are you two doing?" I asked.

"Let's chalk that up as question number one thousand for Mr. Shan!" said Melanie sarcastically. "We're communicating telepathically."

"Wow," I said, "You can do that?"

"I guess. That's how my ancient people communicated." shrugged Melanie.

"Sorcerers used to communicate telepathically?"

"Uhh… yeah," said Melanie, "Let's go with that." I just stared at Melanie. What does she mean by that? Is there a side to her that she is not telling us about? Finally, illusion Melanie says something.

"Okay. I'll come." Melanie whisks us away to the outside of the building. It was a nice warm night and Melanie's hair was practically glowing in the moonlight.

"Your hair," Evra says, "It's pretty." Melanie smiles gently at him.

"Thank you." she whispers. Melanie can be really mean at times, but she is a really caring person. Hell, Evra and I even talked about her as if we'd known her forever.

"Once I was checked out and thanked the owners," said Melanie quietly, " I was ready to go start a new life at the Cirque Du Freak, with Mr. Tall as my guardian and the cirque as my home. I was ready to show my parents that I didn't need to grow up with money to be happy. I just need to be in a comfortable location and with people that I am comfortable with, and vice versa. That's all that I ever needed and that's all that I will ever have." Just then, Melanie and Mr. Tall walked out of the automatic doors. Melanie looked up at Mr. Tall and he looked down at her. They both nod. Melanie sprinkles some dust onto herself and onto Mr. Tall. Melanie and Mr. Tall look at each other one last time. They each picked up one of Melanie's suitcases. And, finally, they ran into the night. They ran in the direction of the Cirque Du Freak where, four months later, Melanie would meet us.

**Chapter 7**

"I came here five minutes later. There I learned that there was a boy who lived at the cirque that was 'a little sick'. He was my age and he was on the brink of death. So I fixed him the only way that I could (without killing him). How I fixed him is really risky and it bonds us until the day we die. But, he is alive. He is the snake boy, Evra Von, that you see before you today." We both looked over at Evra, who kindly stared back. We were awake and back resting in Melanie's tent.

"I have two questions for you, Melanie." says Evra, looking straight at Melanie.

"Okay… bring it." she states back.

"Question number one: How does this spell bind us together for all eternity?"

"That, fortunately, is an easy question." Melanie breathes. "You see, it's what we sorcerers call an empathy link. You will stay alive as long as I am alive or close to you in distance, and vice versa. If I am far away, I have a short amount of time, not only to do what I left for, but to also get back to you before you fall ill and probably die."

"Well," Evra sighed, "that definitely clarified. Thanks. Now, Question number two: Why are you risking your own life to save someone you don't really know?"

"I did it because you needed help."

"But you don't know anything about me."

"So? You're alive. You should be grateful and not question me."

"I just need to know why." pleaded Evra. "Don't you think that I deserve to know that?" Melanie sighed heavily.

"I did it because I couldn't just sit there and let you die. What kind of person would I have been if I knew that I could fix you? I may not have had the chance to save my parents, but I had the chance to save you and , damn it, I did. End of discussion."

"But, Melanie-"

"End-of-discussion." Melanie stated firmly.

Apparently, she wasn't comfortable with revealing true thoughts and feelings. While we were in Melanie's illusion it had rained, but the sun was very hot where we were, so the ground was dry by the time we stepped out of the tent.

"There's something that you're not telling us, Melanie." Evra said, eyes fixed forward, as if he was in a trance. What he said was strange, but Melanie didn't look the least bit fazed by the statement.

"Evra, whatever do you mean?" Melanie said a little too bad actress.

"When we were upstairs in your house, I noticed something peculiar about you and your mother." A small smile spread across Melanie's face.

"Go on." Melanie said, a hint of excitement in her voice.

"How many sorcerers, Mel, have pointed canine teeth like yours?" Melanie's smile got bigger.

"Only one." she said slyly. "Go on."

"What are you?" I asked. She smiled and said,

"I'll show you." At that moment, Melanie held out her arm and something shot out of her wrist. It looked like… oh my gods.

"That's some crazy stuff." Evra whispered. He's right. Totally crazy. It was a… _web_. Melanie had shot a web out of her wrist as if there were an invisible spider there.

"Think about it, I attack when I'm scared, I have pointed canines, I can shoot webs out of my wrists." She started to slowly walk towards us, eyes transfixed on us, a gentle smile playing on her lips.

"What am I?"

"You-You're a spider." Evra whispered. Melanie smiled even wider, showing her fangs, and snaps her fingers. In a purple puff of smoke, she changed into another outfit. She had on a purple and black corset top, a black below-the-knee skirt, a pair of brown boots, and two necklaces, one of a beautiful cross and one with a purple, rain-drop shaped stone.

"Why is everything about you purple?" I asked. Melanie turned away, hands behind her back.

"You both have heard of black magic, correct?" She looked back to us nodding. "There are other forms of magic, including white, grey, and silver. Obviously, pure White magic can only be used for good, while pure Black magic can only be used for bad. Grey magic is neutral, but it's mostly like White magic, and it's usually taught to first years. Now, we're moving onto the Silver magic category. It started hundreds of years ago in the Metallicum era."

"The _Metallicum_ era?" I asked.

"Oh, pardon, the Metallica era. Sorry. Spider language. Anyway, the Metallica era was hundreds of years ago when the sorcerers created the more challenging spells and discovered new types of spells. This called for a new category, my category. The Silver magic category. It-"

"Spider people have their own language?" Evra asked.

"Not the point." Melanie said the tiniest bit irritated. "It has many sub-categories. They are all based on colors and different kinds of stones. Mine is Purple Amethyst, which is what my necklace is made out of. The thing about the Silver magic category is that you could use it for either good or evil. Sadly, it's also the main type of magic taught, so there are a lot of bad sorcerers in the world. But, there are just as many good sorcerers. Lucky for you, I am one of them." She smiled back at us and walked away.

"Come," she shouted over her shoulder, "I need to practice for the show. It's my first one and I'll be assisting other performers, and I'm even going to do my own performance. So hop to it! Get ready for the show!" We stayed in place and watched her walk away.

"She's totally insane." I simply stated.

"Yeah," Evra sighed, "But, she doesn't suffer from insanity."

"Oh?" I said.

"Yeah," said Evra, "She enjoys every minute of it!"

Later that night, we were in Melanie's tent, watching Truska, the lady who could brow a beard at will, fix Mel's hair. Mr. Tall stepped into the tent looking worried.

"Melanie," said Mr. Tall, "you have a visitor."

"But, Father," Melanie objected, "Who would want to see…" She stopped, eyes wide, filling with tears.

"Okay," she said after a few minutes in a small, shaky voice, "I'll be out in a minute." When Mr. Tall stepped out of the tent, Melanie started pacing and whispering loudly to herself.

"Oh no! Oh no! What am I going to do? She found me. Oh my gods!" She stopped pacing and looked at us. She rushed over to us and grabbed our collars. She looked into our eyes. There was a look of hatred and woe in them.

"Don't let her take me!" she screamed. "She will treat me badly. Promise me that you won't let her take me!" She let go of us and slowly sank to the ground sobbing into her hands.

"Melanie," Evra said softly, "Tell us what's-"

"No," Melanie shouted, cutting him off, "there's no time! She has come for me! Promise that you will protect me! Please!" I was kind of scared to find out who 'she' was, but I nodded anyway.

"Okay," Evra says, "Let's find out who this mystery lady is!"

**Chapter Eight**

The walk from Melanie's tent to Mr. Tall's trailer was a long one. Every time we got even close to it, Melanie would run right back into her tent. Melanie isn't the kind of person who runs away from danger or a confrontation. She usually runs straight towards it. By the stories that she'd told us, she had been in more fights than five pro-boxers have in their entire careers combined. But the mere thought of going into that trailer scared the hell out of her.

"Come on, Mel!" shouted Evra when Melanie dug her heels into the ground. Evra tugged so hard, that one of the heels snapped right off of her shoe. She had made the shoes so that the heels could easily be snapped on and off. Evra wrapped his arms around her and picked her up while she was snapping her heel back into place.

"Damn you, Evra!" Melanie shouted.

"Now, now," Evra said, "is that any way for a little girl to talk?"

"I'm older than you, dimwit!" Melanie retorted.

"Yeah, by ,like, _five days_! I'm taller than you!"

"By, like, _two inches_!"

We finally reached the steps of the trailer and Evra set Melanie down on the ground. We could hear a woman arguing with Mr. Tall. Melanie swore under her breath.

"I was hoping that she would just get bored after five minutes and leave. I've been in more fights, physical and verbal, than you can count. Yet, I can't face the only person from my past that can take me away from you guys forever, in more ways than one. Ugh! Why does my life suck so badly?" Evra put his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry Melanie," Evra said reassuringly, "everything will be okay. Just calm dow-"

"NEVER TELL A GIRL TO CALM DOWN! You guys always tell us girls to calm down and we never do! See, now you got me all crazed up. Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile!" Evra grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her close to himself.

"Melanie, get a hold of yourself!" Melanie didn't say anything for a minute to compose herself.

"Sorry, guys," Mel finally said, "I kind of lost it there." She pauses for a moment to breathe one last heavy sigh, and to go into war mode, and bravely stepped into the trailer.

"Mellie!" shouted the lady as she rushed to hug Melanie. "It's so good to see you!" Melanie's eyes started to glow red. You could tell that she wanted to mess this lady up, but she had more restraint.

"Excuse me, Father," Melanie said, stone faced, "but, who is she?" The lady let go of her.

"Now, dear, you know who I am. And what did you call him?" Melanie stepped forward, fist clenched and eyes glowing red, like a flame.

"I think. You. Heard." Melanie said slowly. The lady's face went red.

"Dear," said the lady, in a calm voice, "is that any way to speak to your _aunt_?" WHAT? HER AUNT? THIS IS TOTALLY INSANE!

"Are you going to replace your father with this… this _thing_?" Melanie's eyes grew a deeper red. Her aunt just hit a soft spot. I was pretty sure that this lady wouldn't make it out of the trailer alive.

"He saved me from the darkness when it was going to consume me completely! I can call him whatever I want and you can't do anything about it! You can't take me, either."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that." said Melanie's aunt. "I'm pretty sure that I can call the cops and say that you have been kidnapped by a bunch of circus freaks." Melanie closed her eyes and smirked.

"You really think that you could win that way, huh, Marianne? Well, Mr. Tall is my _legal guardian_. We paid out the right people and I am his legal daughter. If you took me, _you_ would be guilty of kidnapping!"

"Yeah," I said, "and she's perfectly safe here." Marianne turned to me, fire in her eyes.

"Did I say that you could speak, boy?" She raised a hand to slap me, but she stopped mid-swing. She stopped because of the fact that there was a dagger being pressed to her throat by Melanie.

"You do that again," Melanie said, darkly, "and there will be a stub on your neck where your head once was. You got that? Now I suggest that you leave, or will I have to kill you first? Take your pick."

In a flash, Marianne grabbed the hilt of the dagger and threw it across the small space. It sailed only inches past Mr. Tall, but he didn't even flinch. He was staring at Marianne and Melanie. They were fighting. Like, all out combat. Melanie tried a round-house kick to Marianne's face, but it was quickly blocked, and Marianne twisted the ankle. Melanie shrieked and kicked Marianne in the chest. She went sailing into the wall of the trailer. Melanie was upon her in seconds. But, Marianne was prepared for her. She kicked Melanie in the chest and sent her flying into the other wall. It seemed as if she were knocked unconscious. But, she jumped up, fire balls in hand, and blasted Marianne out of the door. Melanie ran at top speed out the door and Evra, Mr. Tall, and I followed. They were fighting on the ground.

"You know," Evra said, "in a weird way, I'm enjoying this. I find it kinda hot, too." Melanie was struggling, but she found a second to say,

"Evra, this is no time for your dude thoughts!" He looked at me and nodded, and I nodded back. We looked at Mr. Tall and he nodded, as if he read our thoughts. We all jumped into the fight at the same time, Mr. Tall and I holding down Marianne, while Evra was holding back Melanie. It turned out that it was Melanie who had to held back by two people, not Marianne, because she broke free of Evra's grip and tackled Marianne once again. Mr. Crepsley, who just flitted over to help us, helped hold back Melanie. But, even with Evra and Mr. Crepsley, her words couldn't restrained.

"You thought that you could just come here and tell me what's up? I don't think so! You were just jealous of me and my mother, weren't you Marianne? She was and always will be better than you! Don't you see? This is just a sick little game to you. You just want to get me so that you can have your revenge on my mother. Well, now she's dead. My mother is dead and you can't do anything to her! She's in a better place, away from you! Why do you hate me, Marianne?" Melanie screamed loudly. She got a sudden look on her face, a mix of disgust and pain.

"Do you hate me because I look just like her?" Marianne picked up her head and shouted,

"Can you blame me? You look and act just like her! I don't hate your mother! I never did! I was just jealous of her, but I loved her! She was my sister! Did you ever think of that?" Melanie had a surprised and hurt look on her face. "She was the one who got a car for her sixteenth birthday. She was the one that got A's on everything. She was the one who got to keep her powers. You are a spitting image of your mother and I hate you for it! You remind me too much of her. You are what's making my life miserable." Melanie's eyes were filling with tears.

She broke free of Mr. Crepsley's and Evra's grips, but she did not try to tackle Marianne. She instead walked towards her. Marianne closed her eyes, as if she were going to be stricken.

"Don't you think that I know how much I look and act like my mother?" Melanie said in a low, dark voice. Marianne opened her eyes.

"What?" she said.

"You heard me!" Melanie shouted. "Don't you think that I know how much I look and act like my mother? Do you know how painful it is to look in the mirror everyday to see her face staring back at me? Before I came here, I wanted to sometimes kill myself because of how much it pained me to just look in the mirror! But, no matter the quality of the blade or the height of the building, I just never died! I could never kill myself! But, it was only when I came here and I met Mr. Tall, Evra, and Darren that I truly felt happy! I finally found a place where I was truly happy with myself! I haven't even thought of a suicide attempt since I've been here. For weeks after mom and dad died, I felt as if the world was crashing around me, and that it was only a matter of time before it would hit me and that I'd be truly happy. But, for the past four months, I finally felt happy and serene! I finally found a place where I felt safe. Why don't you find one too?" Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Then, Marianne started to sob loudly.

"I never thought about that." she said through her tears.

"Yeah," shouted Melanie, but she then softened her voice, "but I am at equal fault here. I'm sorry I blasted you and kicked you in the chest." Mr. Tall and I let go of Marianne, and she ran towards Melanie. She embraced her and said,

"I'm sorry for everything that I've done to both you and Marla!" Marianne was hugging Melanie and was sobbing, but Melanie wasn't hugging her back. She was reluctant to. But she eventually raised her arms to embrace her aunt back.

A few hours later, Marianne left. She and Melanie embraced once more before she left. She had told us about Melanie's uncle, Jason McCoy. And Melanie had told her about her childhood and about her father, James Ramm. It was good to see them finally getting along. Once Marianne gave Melanie a phone to contact her and drove off, Mr. Tall got down onto his knee and said,

"Melanie, your mother and father would have been proud." Melanie looked at him with her purple eyes and said,

"What about you?" Mr. Tall didn't comprehend and said,

"What?"

"What about you?" Melanie repeated. "You are my second father, after all. Your input counts too. Are you proud of me?" Mr. Tall smiled and said,

"Yes, I am definitely proud." Melanie threw her arms around Mr. Tall and smiled.

"Thanks, dad." He embraced her back.

"And just for the record," I said, Melanie and Mr. Tall looking over at me, "Evra and I are proud too." Melanie laughed and ran to hug us. Shortly after that, we packed up our tents to make a move for another town and another show.

27


	4. Chapters 9 thru 12

**Chapter Nine**

I was depressed for a little while, especially after I had found our human friend, Sam Grest, dead. His stomach had gotten torn apart by the Wolf Man. I was especially fazed by the fact that I had drained his whole body of his blood (and I have acquired a strange craving for pickled onions). You see, when a vampire drains a human of their blood, they also take a part of them. I have acquired his strange taste for pickled onions. Melanie was there the whole time, comforting Evra and I the whole way to our new campsite. My head was on her lap the whole time and Evra's head was on her shoulder. She stroked our hair throughout the night, stopping from time to time to rest her arms. By the time that we had gotten to our site, Melanie was dead with sleep. She had stayed up the whole night, making sure that we were alright. Mr. Tall told her that she had done her work for the night, so he made her sleep in his trailer while everyone worked throughout the morning. She had tried to refuse him, but she gratefully accepted his offer anyway. It was mid-afternoon when we had built the stage and raised the performance tent. It was almost time to begin the show. It was only a few short hours away. We were excited for Melanie. It was going to be her first performance, since she decided to wait until we got here to the new campsite. Melanie was going to have a fire pit in the middle of the stage for her performance, so Evra and I were asked to get firewood for her. We went into the woods behind our performance tent. The quietness and serenity of the woods were too much to handle. I was so used to noise, Evra playing his instruments, and Melanie conjuring things and swearing if she did it wrong. 'Why won't something make a noise?' I thought inside my head. My prayer for noise was answered when I had heard someone walking onto the stage in the tent. When I told Evra about it, he had told me that he once heard the exact same noise a few months back. He had also said that he heard the sound of a piano being played shortly after that. But, every time that he finally got to the stage, the sound would stop abruptly.

Being intrigued by this, Evra and I entered the performance tent through its back. There we saw Melanie standing on the stage. She reached into a small bag and sprinkled a bunch of familiar looking dust onto a large amount of space on the stage. Then she started to walk around the space that she had sprinkled the dust around with her hand out to her side. It looked as if she were running it over something. That something became clearer and clearer every time she went around it. It turned out to be a grand piano. When the piano was fully materialized, Melanie sat down on the piano stool. Then she started to play. She played Beethoven's Ode to Joy. She played it so well that it was as if Beethoven himself was playing the song. And then, best of all, she started to sing:

Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee.

Earth and heaven reflect you rays.

Stars and angels sing about you,

Center of unbroken praise.

Field and forest,

Veil and mountain,

Blooming meadows, flashing seas,

Chanting birds and flowing fountain

Call us to rejoice in thee.

Her singing had attracted the performers and stagehands from all around the campsite, like moths to a flame. Melanie was facing the opposite direction of us, so we all snuck in to hear her sing and play.

"It's… just… so…," said Evra said, "I… I don't even know how to explain it. It's just so… wow. She had to be born with this gift." It's as if Evra had read my mind. At first, I thought that the singing was a result of the magic dust that she had sprinkled around, but no amount of magic could create something so magnificent. I've been having mixed feelings about Melanie. I was curious and puzzled by her. How could a person that lost so much, be so happy? I was comfortable and happy around her. She had a sort of energy around her that made Evra and I feel so… awesome. She reminded me of the things that I liked about myself. She also reminded me of my little sister, Annie. Melanie always made sure that I was alright and she always kept a close eye on me to make sure that I stayed safe. She cared about me and looked after me. I saw her as an older sister. You may have heard of a soul-mate, but she was definitely my soul-sister. When Melanie stopped playing, everybody in the tent had burst into applause. Melanie turned around, startled. She had on a look of shock, but then she waved to us all.

"That's some talent you got there, Mel." said Evra. She smiled widely.

"Do you really think so?" she asked a proud look in her eyes. We both nodded.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm going to be singing for tonight's show, and it won't be for people to listen to."

"What do you mean?" I asked her suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing." she said innocently.

**Chapter Ten**

Before Melanie came on stage, Mr. Tall came on to talk to the audience. Evra and I were in the concealed balcony, eagerly awaiting Melanie's first performance.

"Audience", started Mr. Tall, "this next act is new and very terrifying. I will tell you that one of this young lady's talents is sorcery. The list goes on and on, but there is one that won't be revealed until after her performance. So, without further ado, here is Melanie Juniper Lee Ramm, my daughter." Melanie walked onto the stage, barely recognizable. Her super long bangs covered most of her face. She was wearing a costume that was the usual black and purple. She wore a long sleeved, fully netted shirt with a black dressy tank top on top. The skirt, and every other thing she was wearing, was purple. The specific shade of purple was the same purple that her eyes were. Her stockings were black and purple and her boots were black. She also wore a choker, a pair of earrings, and a bracelet that all had chrome spiders hanging from them. She was also wearing her mystical purple teardrop shaped stone around her neck.

Melanie spoke in a very poetic tone (part of the act).

"Hello, Father. I'm as fine as can be. Please tell me who are these people that I see?" (Okay, so this show is not _totally_ not an act. We still do that whole dramatic thing so that we can build up suspense and stuff, like when Mr. Tall pretends that the show is over and Evra's snake "attacks".)

"These people are your crowd, Melanie. They are here to see your amazing skills." Melanie simply nodded at Mr. Tall as he walked off of the stage. She quickly turned back towards the crowd. She looked up at Evra and me and winked. She cracked a small mischievous smile.

"If the other performers were bad, then I am worse. It's because I am under a little curse. On the outside, I'm as plain as can be, but on the inside, it rules me." 'Nicely done.' I thought to myself

"I put the best sorcerers to shame," she continued, "but for now it's time to play a little game. All of the events will begin to click. I'm going to do a little card trick." You could hear a collective groan from the audience. Melanie got a slight scowl on her face, but she was amused, none the less.

"Oh, please don't groan and please don't grunt. I'd like to pick on… this man in front." She pointed to a bald man in front. He acknowledged her, but he didn't do anything. Melanie put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. She raised her hand in an upward motion.

"Don't just sit there like a bag of lard…" The man stood up. Melanie _literally_ _reached _into the mini-bonfire we made her and _grabbed a flame from it_. When it burned out, there was a deck of cards in her hand. She tossed the deck into the air. But it remained a perfect stack and it floated right in front of her. With the movement of her arms and hands, Melanie made the cards spread out and shuffle themselves, revealing the purple and pink spider and butterfly design on the back. She told us that was her family crest. With another flick of her wrist, she made numbered cards appear over the cards from the deck.

"…Pick a card, _any_ card." The man picked the card with the number eight above it. Melanie smiled. Eight was her favorite number.

"Whoa," said Melanie, "hold on. One more thing. It's dark magic that these cards bring." Melanie grabbed the card out of the air, sending the rest of them flying backstage.

"A random card brings a being that has not yet been seen… It is the dangerous Spider Queen." Melanie got a concerned look on her face. You could feel the rising tension in the air. Melanie quickly snapped out of her deep thought "phase" and stood up straighter.

"Now, my children," you could hear the terror and excitement in her voice, "I throw this card into the fire, to find out its heart's true desire." Melanie tossed the card into the bonfire and sprinkled her magic dust over it. The fire instantly turned purple, spitting out black smoke. The smoke eventually took the form of… a spider. The whole crowd gasped, waiting for Melanie's reaction. She was shaking heavily, a little too heavily. She suddenly turned angry.

"You fools! My god! Do you know what this means? You have just released the dangerous Spider Queen!" You could hear screaming and people panicking. But then, slowly, a chuckle became audible, then it turned to humored laughter, then it turned to cackling, hysteric, _evil _laughter. Everyone silenced themselves, and then they all looked over to the stage to see the source of the laughter. It was Melanie. After a short while, she stopped laughing and acknowledged that the crowd was staring at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said in an amused voice, "I'm the only benefactor, you see, for the infamous, _dangerous _Spider Queen… _is me_." That's when the people totally lost it. Melanie made the isle lights go off and had only the bright lights of the stage to illuminate the place. She flicked her wrist at the "doors" and "windows" of the tent, and they all closed shut. You couldn't peel back the velcroed windows, and you couldn't pull open the wooden doors. Melanie cackled some more at the sight of the people trying to get out and called,

"You can scream all you want, and you can cry. You can even _flee_ if you want to try. I will assure you that everything is _not_ fine. You are in a prison of my _twisted_ design. You are in trouble, so do not doubt that _there is no possible way out_."

There was some more laughing (from Melanie) and more screaming (from… well, _everybody_). The people started to scream some more when they heard Melanie sing her spider song. All she was basically doing was vocalizing, but it attracted _millions_ of different spiders, crawling onto the bodies of Melanie's unsuspecting victims. One even managed to crawl up the hidden balcony. I tried to control it, but it wouldn't move.

"You know what that means." said Evra.

"Mmmmm-hmmmm." I said back. Melanie looked back up at us, and we gave her the sign (no, not _that_ sign!) She nodded at us and said,

"This trick, my people, has a theme:" She waved her arms to cut off all of the magic that she was using, _including_ the spider illusions. When everybody stopped screaming, and looked at her, she finished her sentence.

"Things aren't always what they seem." After a few moments of shocked silence, the people burst out in applause. Melanie had a proud look on her face. She did her curtsy and walked off of the stage. Evra and I immediately ran down from the balcony to congratulate Melanie.

"Mel, you did great!" exclaimed Evra.

"You were better than great! You were fantastic! I actually believed that you were serious about the whole thing!" She smiled so much that her purple eyes seemed to glow with excitement.

"Thank you, guys!" she said, embracing us both. "I was afraid that my eyes would give away my whole performance!" She stepped back from us and then Mr. Tall came backstage after announcing that the show was "over". The people were doing the last minute gift shopping before they would be allowed to step out. He had a proud look on his face when Melanie ran to embrace him.

"You did great, Melanie! I really am proud of you."

"Really?" asked Melanie.

"Yes, my spider, yes. I couldn't be any more proud." Melanie got a look on her face that I will never forget. It was the look of pure happiness. She struggled with the right words to say.

"Thanks… _dad_." Mr. Tall's face lit up like the fourth of July. He stepped back from Melanie, a sense of fulfillment in his stand.

"Evra," he said, sounding happier than I had ever heard him, "It's almost time to do your thing." Evra stood up straighter.

"And my thing, I will do." He said, wagging his tongue in and out. Melanie and I laughed, with Evra soon to join. He quickly dashed back up the collapsible staircase to the hidden balcony to go to the faux balcony, where he slinks down from.

"And the screaming begins," said Melanie, "In three…"

"Two…" I said.

"One…" said the newly arrived Mr. Crepsley. After that, you could hear the terrified screams from the audience as a poisonous snake slithered down from the balcony.

"Ah, good times!" sighed Melanie.

"Good times." Mr. Crepsley and I repeated. Mr. Tall and Evra shortly came back.

"Darren," said Evra. "You should've came with me! I saw this girl with really nice…" He caught Melanie's 'You better choose your words wisely' look and audibly gulped.

"…eyes." Evra finished. Melanie gave him her 'I thought so' look.

"Wow, Melanie," said Mr. Crepsley, "you sure are a freak." He smiled at her. He is like an uncle to her, so they are always at it. Melanie raised an eyebrow.

"And you are a salty, old vampire, Crepsley."

"Great!"said Evra. "Now that we're all on the same page, why don't we get something to eat?"

**Chapter Eleven**

"Crap!" I opened my eyes. I heard Melanie swearing. For such a small feeble looking girl, she sure could swear. It was probably only 2:00AM when she swore aloud. I quickly sat up in my hammock. I fully swung up, surprised that I didn't fall out of the hammock. I saw Evra peeking into Melanie's part of the tent from the divider. I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. He looked back at me and put a finger up to his lips. He motioned for me to peek into the other side of the tent. I slowly pushed my head past the divider. I saw Melanie at her elixir table. She was mixing some liquids together and waited. Suddenly, a green glow burst from the bowl. She lifted it up, her shoulders tensed as she peeked into the bowl, and she stamped her foot and swore to herself. Evra and I creeped over to her and we grabbed her waist. She slightly screamed and she jabbed her elbows into our stomachs. We both yelped and backed away from her. She spun on her heels and crouched into fighting position. When she saw that it was us, she scowled and crossed her arms.

"Are you guys kidding me? What were my two rules that I have that refers to sneaking up on me?"

"Rule number one," said Evra, still clutching his stomach, "don't sneak up on you when you're asleep or you would most likely kill us with your shank." Melanie nodded.

"And?"

"And," I continued, slightly bent over, "rule number two, don't sneak up on you unless we want many bruises." Melanie nodded again.

"Correct," she said. "Now here's a question: why are you guys awake?"

"I woke up when I heard you swear the first time," said Evra.

"So, I must've woken up when you swore the second time," I said. Evra shook his head, his green hair looking like slightly swaying seaweed.

"It must've been at least the fiftieth time. She swore for a good seven minutes before you woke up." Melanie looked really troubled.

"What's wrong, Mel?" I asked her. She sighed heavily. She sat down on her giant web (it's where she slept upside-down) and she smoothed out her hair. She was frazzled to say the least, but she wouldn't say why. Evra kneeled down in front of her and yelled in her face,

"Darren wants to know what's wrong with you! Why aren't you answering? What's wrong with yo-" Melanie grabbed Evra's face and pushed it away from hers.

"Please respect the perimeter of my face. Thank you." she said blandly. I kneeled down in front of her as well.

"What's wrong, Mel?" I repeated. She looked up at me with tired eyes and said,

"I just had a _really_ bad dream. Go back to bed."

She climbed up her web and hung upside-down to go to sleep. She closed her eyes, but opened them again when she felt that we didn't leave.

"I suppose that you're gonna want me to tell you about it?" We both nodded. She sighed again and flipped over, landing on her feet. She turned toward us and looked into our eyes. Her usually strong purple eyes were pale, and her smile seemed to be non-existent. She wanted to tell us something really badly, but she didn't know what exactly to say. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but she couldn't get the words out. She eventually shook her head and said,

"There is no time for foolish chatter. It's time for sleep. I will tell you all when the sun is up and it's time to our chores. Okay?" We shook our heads stubbornly like little kids. Melanie scowled some more and said,

"You should be lucky that I actually gave you a time that I was going to tell you. If I told you that I would tell you later, then I would probably postpone telling you. Go to sleep. _Now._" Evra and I silently slipped past the divider to our side of the tent and rested into a fitful sleep.

We woke up a few hours later at 7:00AM. We were to go hunt to feed the Little People. Evra, Melanie, and I headed out of the tent, but Melanie stopped. She frantically put a hand up to her neck and her eyes widened.

"Wait!" she said loudly. We jogged to the place that we left her and she said that she had to back to the tent and that she would meet us back in the woods.

"Why?" I asked her. She smiled gently, some of her frazzle-ness gone.

"I have to go back to get my necklace. I can't let it out of my sight. It's my biggest weakness if my amethyst gets switched out with… I just need it, 'kay?" She ran towards the tent and disappeared into it. Evra looked at me, obviously concerned. I just shrugged and started walking forward with him. We were half way into the forest when we heard a blood-curdling scream.

"_Melanie_," Evra whispered, and started running forward. I stood there for a minute, trying to sum up what was happening. When I couldn't, I started to run. I caught up with Evra at the entrance of the tent. Melanie was screaming bloody-murder. There was a person in a cloak standing next to her, just watching her. He looked up at us and started to say something, but Evra stopped him.

"If you know what's best for you, you will step away from her." The guy took a step back and let Evra through. He stepped over to her. She was leaning back onto her giant web, as if something was choking her. If I could've seen her eyes, then I would assume that they would've been bulging out. Melanie had her cloak on and we couldn't see the top part of her face. Mr. Tall rushed through the tent opening and stepped next to Evra. He took one look at the stone on Melanie's necklace, and he immediately shouted,

"Evra! Get that stone off of Melanie's chain!"Evra grabbed at the stone and threw it at Mr. Crepsley's hand when he walked in. Mr. Crepsley caught it in his hand and crushed it, leaving no trace of it behind. Melanie collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. She took one look at the guy and her eyes instantly started to glow red. She ground her teeth and tackled him. She was punching him so hard that she had his head going up and down. He eventually kicked her off and she got entangled in her own web. He went up to her and stroked her face before attempting a body shot. She twisted out of the way and came back with a kick in the chest. The guy flew backward and went past me, outside the tent. Melanie got off of her web and yelled loudly,

"I am going to _kill_ you, Alexander!" She ran past me and tackled Alexander once more. Everyone, except for Mr. Crepsley (due to the whole being allergic to sunlight thing), ran out of the tent and watched her as she, once again, started to fight with this stranger.

"Well," said Mr. Crepsley, "we can safely assume that these two know each other."

We tried pulling Melanie off of Alexander, but she would just resist and go back to fighting with this strange character. She punched him once more and the hood of his cloak came off. He was definitely American. He had long black hair, brown eyes, and a fair skin complexion. He put his hands up to block his face from the sunlight. Melanie stopped, got close to Alexander's face, and said,

"I win." She got up off of him and left him lying there. She looked back and said,

"And the whole "I'm-gonnaswitch-Melanie's-amethyst-out-with-a-purple-kryptonite-stone-and-watch-her-choke thing was pathetic. You are a waste of space." The boy got up and bowed down on one knee.

"I apologize, Melanie. I'll try harder next time."Alexander said, humor in his voice. Melanie whirled around, obviously angered by his sarcastic-ness.

"While you are on my grounds, you will respect me." said Melanie, menacingly.

"Mel?" said Evra.

"Yes?"

"Who is Alexander?" Melanie's eyes widened a bit.

"This is Alexander Monroe. He used to be my best friend. But now… he's my nemesis. And right now… he is dead to me."

**Chapter Twelve**

"Well, well, well, Melanie. It's so nice to see you again. Did you get thinner? Size eight in clothing now?" Melanie turned to Alexander, who was tied to one of the poles inside the tent.

"That's none of your damn concern!" she snapped.

"Jeez," said Alexander, "I just wanted to know. I like to keep tabs on my friends." Melanie's eyes flared.

"You're no friend of mine, Alexander." Melanie said. Evra and I were sitting in chairs near Mr. Tall and Mr. Crepsley. We were all sitting in the darkest corner of the tent. Melanie and Alexander were right in the middle. The tent pole that Alexander was tied to was near an opening in the top of the tent, so there was a ring of light about three feet in diameter in the middle. That's where Melanie and Alexander stood.

"Your web spinning has gotten better, friend." complimented Alexander. He would've known. He was tied to the pole with Melanie's webs.

"How many times do I have to tell you to shut the hell up? I'm not you friend."

Alexander scoffed.

"Yeah, _you're_ the one who tied _me_ to a pole, and _you're_ the one telling that you hate me? That's just messed up." It was Melanie's turn to scoff.

"I wouldn't tie you to a pole if I liked you, idiot… _NOW SHUT THE HELL UP_!" Alexander just smiled. He wasn't finished pissing her off just yet.

"How's the _bounty hunting_ going, Melanie?" Melanie drained of all color instantly.

"Bounty hunting?" Evra asked aloud. "What is he talking about?" Melanie just stuttered.

"I-I don't know w-what y-you're t-talking about."

"_I-I don't know w-what y-you're t-talking about._" mocked Alexander. "Of course you know what I'm talking about. You did bounty hunting after your parents died. You told me it was a sort of way to relieve stress." Melanie fell back, being the attackee instead of the attacker.

"Y-You're lying." Melanie stuttered.

"He has to be," I said to everybody, "Melanie would do nothing as degrading as bounty hunting." Melanie looked even more hurt when I said that.

"Melavie, du nayve tield de sirve avui dus parste?" asked Alexander. (May-la-vee, do nyah-ve teeld day seer-vay oh-vee doose parst-ayy= Melanie, you never told the people about your past?)

"Nya, darste nieve wier stapalle ay fiert oust!" Melanie shot back. (N-yay, dar-stay nee-ayvay weer sta-paul-ay aye feert oust!= No, they never was supposed to find out!") Alexander rolled his eyes.

"Du'ver partetic!" Alexander scoffed. (Do-veer par-tet-eek! = You're pathetic!)

"Duve de heild uve, avoneiable! Du'ver ah mistakah!" Melanie shouted, clasping her hands over her ears. (Do-vay day heel-ed oo-vay a-von-ee-a-bleh! = Shut the hell up, abomination! Do-veer ah mis-take-ah!= You're a mistake!) Alexander was mad now.

"Nya, du'ver de mistakah! Du'ver de une qay'st ah spierdah ayed ah saquell !" snapped Alexander (N-yay, do-veer day mis-take-ah!= No, you're the mistake! Do-veer day oon kay-st ah speer-day ay-d ah sa-kell!= You're the one who's a spider and a sorcerer!) Melanie writhed in anger.

"Ayt larst ye'at nayt ah perty criminalst!" retorted Melanie. (ay-t l-are-st yeh-at n-yay-t ah pear-ty cree-may-nal-st!= At least I'm not a petty criminal!) Alexander made his final retort.

"Du'ver stenp sa muth tiem vert des tiers! Ye chore leary imagina quee du'ev ven qeela vert dem, du velore!" (Do-veer stenp sa muth tie-h-m v-air-t days teers! Yay core leery image-ina qwee do-ev ven qweela v-air-t dem, do vay-lore!)

For the whole argument, Mr. Tall was translating. But he suddenly stopped at the last sentence. Both his and Melanie's eyes went wide, and Melanie's mouth hung open.

"What is it, Hibernius?" asked Mr. Crepsley. He looked over at Melanie, who was standing in her original spot, as she had finished the argument, mouth and eyes wide open. Mr. Tall cleared his throat.

"He said that she's been spending so much time with us. He also said that he could only imagine what she's been doing with us… and he called her a …" he whispered the whole five letter word into Mr. Crepsley's ear. Mr. Crepsley's eyes widened a bit as well.

"What?" I asked. Mr. Crepsley cleared his throat.

"He called her something that you should never call a lady." he stated. Evra's eyes narrowed.

"Which one? There are at least three of them." He mouthed one of the words. Mr. Tall and Mr. Crepsley shook their heads in unison. The four lettered one was out. I mouthed one of the five lettered ones. They both shook their heads again.

"Then that means… he called her a…" I said. I had just realized what he had called her. He called her the most horrible name that you could call a female. I looked over at Melanie. She had closed her mouth. She was just standing there, staring at Alexander, in shock. She eventually moved… to a covered table at the back of the tent.

"Melanie," I got up the courage to say. She just looked at me. That was all it took to shut me up. I could tell by the look in her eyes that Alexander had brought out all of the hatred that she could ever have. That was it. I realized just then that things were going to get a little painful for him.

Melanie uncovered the table. There were high quality weapons on the table. The sharpest blades and arrows you could ever see.

"Mr. Crepsley, Darren, do you know why I told you both to feed before you came here?"

"I now have a slight idea." stated Mr. Crepsley dryly. Melanie said nothing. She just picked up a dagger. She walked back over to Alexander and pulled his right arm out of his binds.

"What the hell are you…?" started Alexander. He stopped when he saw Melanie's fangs elongate. She then bit Alexander's arm. It went stiff. Alexander just laughed.

"Do you really think that you're underhanded enough to beat me at my own game? You can't do one evil thing to me." Melanie hissed.

"Let me show you what I can do, Mr. Underhanded Evil-one." She picked up the dagger and started gently carving a symbol into Alexander's arm. Alexander was screaming in pain, while blood dripped down his arm. My stomach started to ache. Not from hunger, but from… disgust. There it was… on the floor. Droplets of evil blood. Straight from the source. But, it wasn't the fact that the blood was evil that was making my stomach twist and turn, it was the fact that the blood had been shed by Melanie's hand. Melanie had stepped back to see what she had done. Her eyes had gone back to normal. She looked at Alexander's arm and drained of all color. She immediately dropped the dagger. She went to look where it landed, but she then immediately noticed the blood. She turned to us, looking for help. Nobody reacted. She then ran out of the tent. We all ran out to follow her. We ran straight towards the woods, where we found her vomiting violently.


	5. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

I helped Mr. Tall and Evra clean up all of the blood. We also helped them bandage up Alexander's arm. When we were covering the wound, I saw what Melanie had carved into his arm. It was a spider. I went with Evra to go look for her, but she was nowhere in sight. We asked Mr. Tall where she possibly could've gone.

"Look up at the wall. She's there." The Wall was a wall (redundant much?), where Melanie trained. There were spears and shurikens sticking out of it. She would flip on the spears like they were parallel bars and she was a gymnast. The shurikens were for her to grab onto. She used this wall to teach herself to ignore pain. At the end of the day, she always had bloody hands. But she gained more than that. She gained the ability to ignore pain. She would go up there just to think most days and we would usually go up there with her, but she would zap us up there. This time, Evra and I had to climb up the wall with shurikens embedded in it. I got minor cuts and bruises on my hands, but I got a major gash on my knee and Evra got nasty cuts on his hands. I gasped aloud and Melanie peaked over the top, purple eyes wide.

"What in bloody hell do you think you're doing?" she gasped. I smiled weakly.

"Getting cut." Melanie offered her hands to the both of us. She pulled us up and she looked me in the eyes and frowned even more.

"That's not even remotely funny, Darren." she said blandly. Her eyes dropped down to the cut on my knee.

"Well that's a peculiar thing."

"Yeah," I said sarcastically. "It's new."

"Well that must not feel fun."

"Yeah, it doesn't." Melanie sighed.

"Come here, kid. Let's fix you up, then." I crawled to her. That turned out to be a very painful thing. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"You are an idiot." I sat down and smiled painfully.

"If only I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd have seventy-five cents." Evra and Melanie briefly laughed. Melanie's hands started to glow with their purple healing light, as her hands hovered over my knee.

"What were you thinking? Climbing up this wall is dangerous for people who don't know how to handle it. You should've called up to me. You guys are so reckless."

I replied by grimacing in pain. The feeling of your skin technically being stitched back together isn't very soothing. We sat in silence while she healed my knee. Evra had his legs dangling over the edge of the wall while Melanie and I was sitting in the middle, me with my legs crossed, her with her legs to the side. Once she was done, we both took our places next to Evra. There we were, sitting in a line, tallest to shortest. Evra, Melanie, and me. We've made it pretty far, us three. We have vowed to each other that we would always have each other's backs. Yet, at that moment, we all felt… distant. We all had something on our minds. I guessed that Evra was thinking the same thing that I was. I was thinking about the last time that we saw Melanie. She was carving the spider into Alexander's arm. I couldn't tell what Melanie was thinking. She was just staring into space. She had the most amazing poker face.

"I am going insane." Evra and I looked over to the speaker. It was Melanie. I had just noticed that she was crying. She then started crying bitterly into her hands. I didn't know what to do at that point. But Evra, he put his arm around her and pulled her to his chest. She cried and cried into Evra's chest, her transparent tears trailing down his scales. She calmed herself after a while and she furiously wiped her face clean. Her hair went into her face, but she didn't push it away.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I just sorta… freaked out back there. I didn't realize what I was doing. I just… did it. It happens every time I get furious in a confrontation. I just… blank. Some dark part of me takes over. I just… I just don't get it. I don't get what happens to me… but it's not good." She starts to cry again. Her tears fell onto Evra's hands, and he winced from the salty tears getting into his cuts. That was the first time that Melanie had noticed the cuts.

"Oh, Evra," she gasped, "why didn't you tell me? Your cuts could've gotten infected!" She had her hands hovering over his to heal them. I smiled. You could tell that Evra was enjoying the attention. He did have a slight crush on Melanie. He didn't have to tell me, though. I sorta knew it off-hand.

"You know," said Evra, "I think that it'll heal faster if you do this." He put his hands in hers. Melanie blushed slightly. There we were, watching the sun set.

"You know," Melanie said to Evra, "I think it'll heal even faster if I'm closer to you." She leaned on his shoulder. Evra was a bit surprised, but he relaxed. We all sat there in silence for a while.

"We'll never give up on you." Melanie looked over at me.

"What?"

"No matter what happens, we'll always be by your side." Melanie just smiled, and whispered "Thank you." She leaned back onto Evra and sighed. The sun was setting and we were all staring at it. I looked over to Evra and Melanie. They were still holding hands.

It was the middle of the night. I was having a dreamless sleep, when I heard Melanie scream. She was screaming crazily, and she was thrashing about on the floor, instead of hanging off of her web as usual. We shook her awake and she came to with a gasp. Then she said the three words that will foretell how this dangerous trek will end.

"Someone's gonna die."


	6. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

Melanie was crying hysterically. Whenever we finally calmed her down, she would just start to cry again. Although I've seen her cry many times in the month and a half that I've known her, I never saw her cry that much. It also was the last time that I saw her be that scared and cry that much. I frantically tried to calm her by saying happy things, but she would just keep crying. Evra stepped in, saying that he wanted to experiment with something. I was tired and I was happy to oblige. He knelt down in front of the shaking figure and he pulled her to his chest. She threw her arms around this neck and she sobbed into his chest. He just sat there with his arms around her, waiting for her to stop crying. His wide eyes were directed to the floor, as if he was afraid to even look at her. Melanie calmed down after a few minutes and she mumbled that she was sorry to Evra. Evra said nothing, but he turned her around so that she was leaning back onto his chest. He put his arms around her waist protectively and he put his chin on her shoulder. Tears had escaped his eyes at that moment. Together, for at least an hour more, all of us had our shares of silent tears. The thing that not only pained me, yet somehow pleased me, was the fact that Evra was crying. It pained me that one of my friends was crying, don't get me wrong. However, I kind of secretly loved the fact that he was crying _for Melanie_. They were absolutely perfect for each other. They were almost like a couple already. They finished each other's sentences, Evra could put his arm around Melanie without it being completely creepy between them, and they would just do things that only extremely close people would do. (Anyway, back on track.)

Everybody was silent for a little while. Then Melanie spoke.

"I witnessed four different ways of dying: being strangled, drowning , falling off of a cliff, and… burning. I was able to make out that the dream was saying that one of us would die in one of these ways. I was in this tent when the person was being chocked. Being chocked by what, I can't say. I couldn't see it, but it felt... _metallic_. When I was drowning, the person was on their knees next to a river. A physical force was pushing the head into the water. After nearly losing consciousness, the person was eventually pushed into the river. When I was falling, we were in a canyon of some sort. The ground crumbled all randomly under the person. They were falling into … darkness. And when the person was burning alive… I don't know how to put it in words. It's too horrible… Yet, it somehow felt familiar..." Her voice trailed off.  
"Maybe it's because of your house," I helpfully suggested. Melanie was silent for a moment after that. Mr. Tall then burst into the tent.

"Melanie! Are you okay, my spider? Did something go wrong?" Melanie nodded.

"Yes, Father. I had a vision." Mr. Tall was frantic.

"Melanie, what kind of vision?" Melanie bit her lip. It had started bleeding a bit.

"Father… It was a vision of _death_."


	7. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

A few hours later, we were sitting in Mr. Tall's trailer in silence. Mr. Tall was analyzing Melanie's dream. The spider girl mentioned was under the spell of one of her own sleep potions. Before taking it, she spun a web for her to hang onto. Sadly enough, her work was all in vain. Hanging upside-down on a spider's web is a complex thing on its own when you're in human form. Melanie had a precise and complex way of intertwining her hair and her legs into the web, but with her legs being useless, she ended up lying on the couch… Well, more like on Evra and I. Her head was on Evra's lap and her legs were on mine. Evra was unconsciously stroking Melanie's hair. I didn't quite have the energy to tell him. It was around two in the morning.

"Melanie was chocked with her necklace when Alexander came, correct?" I looked up, as did Evra. Mr. Tall stared at us, expecting an answer.

"Yes, Mr. Tall," said Evra. "That's correct. Apparently, he had ambushed her when she came into the tent." Mr. Tall slightly grunted in return.

"Well, that solves that." Mr. Tall mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Evra asked.

"The first part of Melanie's vision was that she was being strangled with something metallic, am I correct?" I nodded.

"Yeah," I stated. "The second part was that she was being drowned, the third was that she was plummeting off of a cliff, and the fourth part was that she was being… burned." Mr. Tall nodded.

"Correct. A part of this dream has already happened. So now that way of dying and Melanie are crossed off of the list."

"What are you talking about?" Mr. Tall looked at us.

"I've compiled a list of the clues that Melanie's vision has given. There are the obvious things, like the way that the people are going to die, but… there were other clues that were a bit more… _subtle_." I raised an eyebrow, noticing how he said the word subtle more like a question than a statement.

"How subtle? Like Evra hitting on Melanie subtle or Melanie's mood swing subtle?" Mr. Tall had a serious look on his face.

"It was an 'Evra hitting on Melanie' subtle…"

"Dang! That's not subtle at all! This is trouble!" Evra narrowed his eyes at us. "What?" I asked him. "It's not like you refrain from flaunting it!" Mr. Tall nodded.

"I apologize, Evra, but Master Shan is correct." Evra's shoulders hung in defeat.

"If these clues were obvious, then how did she miss them? Melanie usually pays great attention to detail."

"Not when you're hitting on her." I mumbled under my breath. Evra shot me another glare.

"She must've missed them when she was feeling the sensations of dying. Feeling your organs shut down isn't a day in the park, boys."

"Then what did she miss?" Mr. Tall opened his mouth to answer when Melanie had started to spasms. We all rushed to her. She was hugging her knees to her chest, like in a halfway fetal position. She had major twitches and violent spasms. Tears were running down her cheeks and her eyes were rapidly changing colors. A weird purple aura had appeared around her. She was breathing very hard, as if her lungs were blocked. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"Wake up from your nightmare world, wake up from your nightmare world, wake up from your nightmare world." Melanie repeated the phrase over and over again."Wake up from your nightmare world." Mr. Tall grabbed Melanie by the shoulders and slightly shook her.

"What does that mean, Melanie? What does that mean?" he asked her repeatedly. Melanie deadly stared back and repeated the phrase. I started feeling light-headed. So did Evra. We were on our knees in seconds, eyes getting heavier and heavier. I finally heard Melanie say something different before I passed out.

"We need to wake up from our nightmare worlds. All that we gotta do is defeat the nightmares."


	8. Chapter 16

When Evra and I woke up, we noticed that we were in a canyon. I rubbed my head, thinking about how many times that I have passed out in the last month or so. As I got onto my feet, I noticed how big the canyon was. It stretched on for miles and miles, giving it a sense of endlessness. I didn't quite know what to make of it. As far as I was concerned, we were nowhere near a canyon, or a desert for that matter. After about fifteen minutes of walking, we finally came to see Melanie, who was sitting on the edge of a corner. It jutted out from the face of the rock. Almost like a peninsula*, it was surrounded on three sides by air.

"That stupid little twit is gonna pay," she mumbled to herself, sharpening a wicked looking sword. It had a familliar looking ivory skull pommel on it. When I tapped her on her shoulder, Melanie jumped up and said just about every curse in the book before she started hugging us and chattering with joy."You can never leave my side while we're here," she later said, when she had calmed down. Evra frowned."That's nice, Melanie," he said sitting next to me, "but, where exactly are we?" Melanie's eyes went fire engine red."Alexander transported us to an alternate universe that he can control. Some guy gave him the ability to do that a long time ago. That man is the reason that I'm in the situation that I'm in. His name was Desmond... something. I don't remember the last name." Evra and I simultaneously gulped and looked at each other. She was talking about Mr. Tiny.

"Melanie, did you ever meet the man?"

"Meet? No. Spied on he and Alexander when he made his proposition? Yes." I couldn't quite get why Mr. Tiny would do that. But then again, he was Mr. Tiny. He would do anything for a good laugh.

Melanie had started to tell us about the sort of pocket universe that we were in when a voice rang out from nowhere.

"So, I see you guys are alive. How... disappointing." The voice was cocky and that made Melanie ticked. She jumped up, sword in hand, and screamed in sheer frustration.

"ALEXANDER," she screamed, "WHERE ARE YOU? I HAVE THE SUDDEN NEED TO DESTROY YOU!" Evil laughter rang out.

"I'm sorry," he laughed," I can't be present for a while. But, while you are here, I'll be here with you in spirit. Doesn't that make you feel good?" Melanie's eyes were glowing at this point.

" Alexander," Melanie growled, "You are going to pay for all that you have done. You are going to pay for all of the pain that you've caused." The laughter rang out again.

"I'm sure that will happen, Melanie." he said, with fake sincerity. "Well, I must bid you all adieu for now. I have... business to attend to." Melanie called out his name once more. When he didn't respond, she drove her sword into the rock. Surprised that the who face or the rock didn't crack, Evra and I found ourselves looking from the sword to Melanie, who seemed to be staring into space. We had started to walk back to where we were sitting to dangle our feet off of the rock.

"Stop," she commanded, not looking back. We stopped, Evra farther off than I was.

"Step away from the edge... right now." she mumbled from the corner of her mouth. She didn't move, and Evra and I didn't even dare to.

"What are you talking about?" Evra whispered back.

"Just get away," Melanie mumbled. Evra and I seemed to be stuck to where we were.

"Darren and Evra," she said, a bit louder, "Don't make me tell you again. Get over here." I tried to move my legs, as did Evra. They wouldn't budge.

"What are you idiots doing? Get over here NOW!" Melanie demanded, still not moving.

"We can't move!" Evra said back to her. Melanie's eyes went wide as she turned around. She saw us struggling, but she also saw another thing. The rock us cracking from under us. Evra and I were actually deaf at the moment. We couldn't hear a thing. As time went on, we got more and more persisten when we were trying to move.

"DARREN! EVRA! IT'S CRACKING!" we finally heard Melanie scream. We both looked at the ground, as it cracked out from under us.

"GUYS!" Melanie screamed, peering over the edge. Evra and I both screamed, "MELANIE!" as we looked up at her. We were falling rapidly, still trying to pull our feet out. Evra looked up and screamed,

"MELANIE! DON'T!" I looked up as well, just as Melanie had jumped off. She, despite being thinner and lighter than the weight that Evra, the rock, and I was, actually caught up to us.

"GRAB MY ARM!" she shouted to the both of us, as she held out her left arm. We both grabbed onto it.

"WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?" I shouted, over the wind that was rushing around us.

"I'M GOINT TO TRY AND CATCH THAT ROCK WITH A WEB SO THAT WE COULD STOP!" She raised her left arm up to shoot her threads at a rock jutting out on the canyon's face. She shot her thread out and her eyes widened. The rock disappeared and reappeared in another place. The thread, still aimed at the original spot, flew up uselessly.

"IT MISSED!"


	9. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

My eyes widened as I heard Melanie shriek,

"IT MISSED!" I felt as if the whole was tearing apart around us. We were falling, falling, Evra and Melanie to my right. We were so close to the bottom. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact to come, but it never came. I felt a sharp tug on my arm, and when I opened my eyes, Melanie wasn't there. Evra and I looked around and we simultaneously looked up to see Melanie. She was still holding onto both of our hands and she finally got her web to stick to something. She also looked a bit less pale as she struggled to hold the weight of the rock up. Melanie then used her levitation skills to finally raise us all the way up. As we were set down at the top of the canyon, Melanie exhaled deeply. To get our feet out from the rock, she made it crumble from just one strike from her sword. Obviously upset, she walked back and forth with her sword still clenched tightly in her hands.

"He must think he's funny," Melanie muttered furiously.

"What is his problem?" I asked Melanie.

"Isn't it obvious? He's a psycho little nit! He used to be my best friend, but now he's a lunatic!"

"Mel, why does he hate you?" asked Evra. Melanie's eyes went from blood red to a midnight blue.

"When he got his dark powers, he asked me if I wanted to join him… or marry him, to be more precise." I saw Evra's back stiffen out of the corner of my eye. "I told him that I would never stray towards the darkness, not even for the power. He got all mad and tried to kill me, so my family and I had to move. He's been intent on killing me ever since." We were all silent for a moment, Evra and I taking in the information just given to us.

"Well," Evra said, "at least you've succeeded so far in the fight for your life. Congratu-"

"It's not my life that I'm trying to fight for, Evra." Melanie interrupted. "I'm not trying to kill him just because he's trying to kill me."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Melanie looked down and bit her lip, saying nothing. Evra went up to her and cuffed her chin, making her look up.

"If it's not your life that you're fighting for, then whose?"

"My parent's," Melanie whispered, tears in her eyes, "Alexander aided in killing them."


	10. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

"He…He aided in killing your parents?" I asked again, just to see if I had heard Melanie right. She nodded, looking down with her eyes wide.

"He told the hunters where we lived. Apparently, someone had told him where we lived, which was pretty impossible. We all changed our appearances when we moved to a new place. We were so careful." Melanie's voice was completely helpless sounding, and she looked different at that time. Then, the sky immediately had turned gray, and it looked like our surroundings were fading away. Eventually, we came to a river bank.

"Alexander is toying with us again," Evra growled. Melanie got a frantic look on her face as she looked at the river. When she was about to say something, though, an invisible force pushed her in. I was about to shout Melanie's name, when Evra was pushed in.

"What in the name of-" My sentence was cut off when a force had knocked me into the river as well. As I hit the water, I felt as if all of the air had been knocked out of me. I opened my eyes and saw Melanie and Evra struggling. The water was freezing cold, and a force seemed to be keeping us down.

"Alexander is trying to keep us down!" I heard Melanie say, in my mind (telepathy, remember?).

"Mel," Evra thought, "Could you lift us up out of here?"

"No. It's extremely cold down here," Melanie thought, "My powers won't work. Besides, I can't push through the top of the water." We all then tried to push through the top, but none of us could. Evra, being part _land_ snake, couldn't hold his breath any longer, and he had started to pass out.

"Evra!" Melanie and I both shouted in unison as we rushed over to him. Melanie got to him before he completely reached the bottom, and she held him in her arms.

"Darren," she shouted over to me, "we can't stay down here much longer!"

"I know, Melanie. But, what are we going to do?" I replied, swimming over to her. Melanie's hand suddenly went down to her sword, which was in a scabbard.

"I know how…" She gave Evra to me and told me to swim a short distance behind her, and to never get too close until we're out of the water. I followed her orders, and stayed a short distance away from her, Evra slung over my shoulder. Melanie got to the surface and sliced the invisible force with her sword. As it came down in shreds, she sheathed her sword and reached out with her hand. Feeling slightly light-headed, I accepted her hand and she dragged all of us up onto the surface. Both of us gasping, she flung us as far away from the river as she could. She then went up to Evra and put her hands over him.

"Dehydras," she gasped slightly. She then forced the constricting water out of him. As Evra gasped, now conscious, Melanie sighed happily and grabbed both of us in her embrace.

"Thank the gods that we all are alright," she gasped. We both hugged her back, Evra looking the slightest bit grateful that he became unconscious.

"How much more of this do we have to take?" I whispered.

"Not much more. I expect to be done with Melanie really soon," said a newly arrived Alexander, who had come out from the shadows. Melanie's back stiffened at the sound of his voice, and she had started reaching for her sword the moment he arrived. She jumped up and ran at him with her sword, determined to slice him directly in half. Alexander reached out with one hand and he made a fist. Melanie then fell to the ground, writhing in pain and gasping for air, as if something was constricting her airways. Alexander walked up to her and kneeled next to her, grabbing the sword from her hand. He then sheathed it and smiled wickedly.

"I know that you don't enjoy being restricted, Melanie. But, your demise will come soon enough." As Evra and I had started to stand up, Alexander looked up at us and smirked.

"Oh, I almost forgot about you two," he said, extending his arm and making a fist again. Evra and I immediately dropped, the feeling of lightheadedness creeping back into me. My eyes were closing as I heard Alexander speak.

"Don't worry. Everything will be over shortly.


	11. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen **

Not fully conscious yet, my nostrils burned with the scent of smoke. I groggily opened my eyes to see the orange glow of dancing flames around me. The glare from the inferno hurt my eyes and I quickly shut them.

'Where the hell are we?' I thought.

"Isn't it quite obvious where you are?" asked a very cocky voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. I weakly opened my eyes again to see a pair of leather dress shoes in front of me. They were shoes that I had recognized for they belonged to Alexander Monroe, our young sorcerer antagonist.

"You... What the hell is going on? Can you read my mind?"

"Well, _duh_," Alexander stressed, "You didn't ask where you were out loud, now did you?"

"Where... are we?" I asked, coughing from the smoke filling the room.

"Do you recall a story that Melanie had told you? One that had to do with, oh I don't know, her family _burning_ _alive?_" I wanted to reach up and grab that skinny throat of his.

"You... _You monster. _What the hell have you done with my friends?"

"Oh, _those two_? Well, why don't you look next to you for that snake friend of yours." I looked to my right and spotted Evra, who was still knocked out cold.

"What... about Melanie?" I sputtered.

"Well, my whole objective for this whole charade is for you two to die in these raging flames. _So, who do you think is going to watch_?" He had gestured over to a wall on the other side of the room, and Melanie was there, pinned to the wall with some invisible force. She looked really bad. Her legs and arms were all scraped up, and she had a long scratch along her neck.

"Oh, are you admiring my work?" asked Alexander. "That force that I have around her cuts her every time she starts to thrash about. She had learned her lesson early on." Melanie was breathing heavily and there was blood dripping from her cuts. Evra became more conscious (apparently he wasn't completely unconscious this whole time), and he lifted his head up to look at Melanie.

"You're sick," he spat Alexander chuckled

"Of course I am! Do you think that I would be this way if it wasn't for Melanie?"

"What the hell are you talking about? All that she said was that she didn't want to be corrupted by the darkness that you have decided to become consumed with!" Evra argued, way more conscious now.

"Oh. Is that all that she told you? Ohhh, Darren, You are in for a big surprise. My offer of darkness wasn't the only thing that she had turned down."

"What?" I asked, absolutely confused at the moment.

"She had completely shunned me. She turned from my side, calling me a psycho and a lunatic. she used to be my best friend, _she used to be my life, _and then she turned me away when the darkness was putting me through the excruciating pain. It killed my family! It destroyed my home! And she had the gall to turn me away!" Melanie chuckled from across the room, pain evident in her voice.

"Do you think I... would associate myself with the likes of _you_?" she scoffed."Please. You must be joking." Alexander didn't respond, but he splayed his hand in her direction. This made Melanie lurch forward suddenly, causing a big gash in her stomach to form. Pain instantly came on her face as she spat out blood from her mouth. This action made another cut form on her face.

"Now that you are fully awake, Melanie, I believe that our little ceremony can begin."

"Ceremony? What... the hell are you talking about, Alexander?" Melanie panted.

"Well, my putrid little spider, I have decided to sacrifice your friends to these flames here..._ with you watching._" Melanie had started to twist and turn.

"You stupid baAAAA-" Melanie shouted out. Alexander had made her lurch forward again, causing more cuts across her face and abdomen. As she had started to bleed more, Alexander walked up to her and lifted her face up by her chin.

"Now, is that any way for a young lady to speak?" he asked with false gentility. Melanie was breathing heavily from the pain she had just endured, so she did not answer. Alexander dropped her head from his grasp, causing another cut to spread across one of her cheeks.

"Now then," Alexander exclaimed, so that we all heard what he was saying, "It is time for the sacrifice to commence."

"No!" Melanie shouted out desperately. "Alexander, don't do it! Don't kill them!" Alexander, not even heeding Melanie's calls, had started making his way towards his weapons of choice, two identical wooden spears.

"Alexander, stop!" Melanie continued to shout as Alexander made his way towards Evra and I, heating up the metal tips of the spears and having the wooden handles catch on fire. Since they were still in a universe that he controlled, Alexander was not harmed by the flames. I remember him coming closer and closer, with Melanie screaming louder and more desperately, until Melanie shouted out the one thing that stopped Alexander in his tracks.

"TAKE ME INSTEAD!" Melanie shouted. Alexander stopped short nearly a foot away from Evra and I.

"What was that, Melanie? I didn't quite hear you," Alexander said, slowly turning around to look at her.

"I-I said take me instead.


	12. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

"Take me instead. It's me that you really want to suffer. Have me die here, and leave my friends out of it." Melanie said, looking down. She could not find the strength to look up at Alexander, who was now making his way towards her.

"What if my plan was to let you suffer with the fact that your friends died because of you?" Alexander asked Melanie rhetorically.

"It'd make both of our lives better if you just killed me to get this entire thing over with," Melanie replied. Alexander had seized her face with one hand and made her eyes look into his to see if she was serious. When he saw that her purple eyes were a darker amethyst color, he knew that she was telling the truth, and that enraged him. He smacked her very hard across the face, the force enough to make her spit out blood.

"Why do you care so much for them? You have only known them for a short time! You knew me for your whole life! How are they any different from me?" Alexander shouted in Melanie's face. Her head hung low, still feeling the pain from the slap.

"They've never… tried to kill me… Alexander." she hissed.

"But, I offered you _everything_!" Alexander shouted. "You could've had the world, Melanie! _THE WORLD_! I offered it to you, and you threw it away!" At this point, Alexander had started to go a bit more insane, and he started to lash out at Melanie. His punches and kick made her move about, causing the force field to put more and more deep cuts onto her body. The force field eventually gave out, and Melanie came down at one of Alexander's relentless kicks. A loud crack was heard as a few of Melanie's ribs had broken. She had started to cough up blood and she curled up into a tiny ball.

"I think it's just time for you all to die. Melanie, you can just bleed out over there for all I care. I just want you to be able to see your two friends over here become ash." Alexander said, turning away from Melanie and once again walking toward Evra and I. He continued to run his mouth and Melanie had become completely still. For a moment, I had thought that she was dead, but she was suddenly surrounded by an aura that was a vibrant shade of purple.

"What the hell is happening to Melanie?" Evra whispered to me. Alexander was too busy talking about himself to notice.

"I don't know. I thought her magic didn't work in extreme temperatures. It's blazing hot in here," I whispered back. Alexander continued his monologue, not even noticing that Melanie was rising to her feet. He didn't notice when she picked up a spear and started coming slowly towards him. And he sure as hell didn't notice her when she swung the spear at him, making it catch his side. Blood immediately started flooding out of the wound and Alexander fell to the floor. After that, Melanie threw the spear to the side. She came to us and made us stand up.

"You've got to get out of here!" shouted Melanie.

"No," shouted Evra, "We're not leaving you here!"

"We care for you Melanie! You're very special to us! We can't let you do this by yourself!" I added. Melanie didn't do anything for a bit because this scene brought back the last memory she had of her parents, when she had to say goodbye to them forever. The image of Melanie's mother came to my mind just then. She looked just like her. Tears had started to form at the corners of Melanie's eyes. The house was crumbling around us, and a big piece of the ceiling fell onto Alexander's lower half, pinning him to the floor. This shout of pain had brought Melanie back to the current reality and she looked at the both of us. She knew that something big was going to happen, but she didn't want to tell us. She started pushing us towards the windows with incredible speed and strength and shouted,

"No matter what happens to me, just know that I care about you more than life itself!" And just as the whole building exploded, Evra and I were sent flying out of the windows by Melanie, who stayed inside and sacrificed her life for ours.


	13. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty One**

Free falling out a window was not a very pleasant experience. Anxiety tightened my chest and I felt as if I couldn't breathe. Time slowed down as Evra and I were falling, as if it were slowing down for us to experience all of the emotions that one faced falling off of a building (or out a window, in our case). Our time with Melanie came flashing before my eyes, from the day we found her to what had just happened right now. I realized then how eerily similar the current events were to how we saw Melanie's parents die. Before I could think of anything else, I hit the ground.

I gasped as I woke up from the coma that I was put into by Alexander to take us to his nightmare world. Evra, who was apparently already awake, had been trying to wake me up.

"Darren!" he shouted as my eyes opened. I immediately sat up, making myself feel light headed in the process.

"What's the matter? What happened?" I asked, still a bit scatterbrained as an after-effect from the coma.

"Melanie's and Alexander's bodies are gone! A giant burnt house is also outside the tent, too. It looks like Melanie's!" he said frantically. I sat there taking in his news, paying particular attention to what he said about the bodies being missing.

"Evra… Do you think that means…" I stared to ask him the horrid question, not having the heart to finish it. Evra, knowing what I was asking, nodded his head sorrowfully.

"I think so, buddy," he mumbled, his voice filled to the brim with woe.

"Darren! Evra!" shouted a voice. I instantly recognized the voice that belonged to Mr. Tall. He burst through the trailer with other cirque members following close behind to see us sitting there. He had gone out to search for us when our bodies apparently disappeared. Looking around and finding no Melanie, he got serious.

"Where is she?" he asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. Evra and I were silent for a bit, but Evra decided to tell him.

"Mr. Tall… She risked her life to save us. We seem to think that she was lost in the raging flames."

"Raging flames?" asked Mr. Crepsley, who had arrived with Mr. Tall and the others, "What are you talking about?" We then told them all about what we had just endured. After we finished, there was a silence in the trailer, as if everybody had something on their minds.

"Dead," said Mr. Tall after a while, voice mournful. "My beautiful little spider is… dead?" Evra and I had answered with silence, knowing that words were not needed at this point. Since Mr. Tall was sitting down, Mr. Crepsley was able to put his hand on his shoulder.

"What will we do with all of the debris outside?" asked Rhamus Twobellies, one of the performers.

"We're looking through it," said Evra, with determination.

"What?" asked Mr. Crepsley.

"We're looking through it," repeated Evra. I nodded in agreement.

"If we're able to find Melanie's body, I think that we should find where she had her parents buried, and bury her near there." Mr. Tall thought for a few moments, and then he nodded slowly.

"I agree with the young ones. We must give Melanie the burial she deserves." Everyone else had started to agree, and since the sun had already started rising, they had decided to start. As we walked out to the mass of wood, brick, and ash, I heard something move.

"What was that?" I asked aloud. The noise, being a bit louder this time, had gotten everyone's attention. There were boards moving in one spot.

"What's happening?" asked Rhamus. Nobody dared move, being prepared if it was Alexander returning from the grave. The boards had finally move from their spot and there stood up a figure. That figure turned out to be the very battered, very bruised, but very alive Melanie Juniper Lee Ramm.

"Melanie?" I gasped.

"Oh my gods," gasped Evra. Melanie attempted a few steps forward, but she fell to her knees from fatigue. We all ran to her, Mr. Tall going first to hug "his" beloved child.

"Melanie? Is that really you?" he asked, leaning back to look into her eyes. Melanie gave a weak smile.

"Yeah… Father. It's… me." She quickly hugged Evra and I, Evra's hug lingering for a bit.

"We thought you were dead," Mr. Crepsley said honestly, receiving a hug from Melanie.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, you salty, old vampire," she replied with much affection. We all shared a laugh.

"If you think about it," Melanie said finally, "Evra wouldn't be alive if I had died, now would he? You do recall that I am his life-line."

"Oh yeah," Evra and I mumbled in unison. Melanie laughed.

"Like I said, you're not getting rid of me that easily."

**Afterwards**

After that, we all brought Melanie to the infirmary, where she healed herself with her magic. As all went back to normal, things had started to change. Melanie and Evra started dating about a year later, right after our encounter with Murlough in Mr. Crepsley's old town. They dated for a good long while, too, and Melanie had even become a Queen in the world of Spiders. But, things had started to change as the War of Scars settled in. She helped out a lot in the War of Scars as she grew older, and she was with me until the very end. But those instances are another story. This is the end, my friends. This is the end of the tale of how I had befriended Melanie Juniper Lee Ramm, the Spider Queen.

_I feel really sad finishing this story, considering how long it had taken me to make it. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this, but this story had taken me a good year and a half to finish. I really had fun making my own sort of AU Cirque Du Freak story. Just a note: If there are requests for me to make short stories about the later years that Melanie had spent with Darren, Evra, and the Cirque, I will surely do that! Thank you to all that have faved, story watched, and commented! I really do appreciate all of you reading this! I love you all!_

_~DejaVu971_


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